23 May 2026· Lagos desk
Nigeria's parallel market is tightening — for now
CBN's May circular tightened BDC operations and pushed the parallel premium briefly below 3% — but FX reserves tell a different story.
Field Notes reports from inside the corridors. The Numbers rebuilds the public data. Counterweight argues back against the consensus. Each runs weekly, each is signed.
Reporting from inside the corridors.
CBN's May circular tightened BDC operations and pushed the parallel premium briefly below 3% — but FX reserves tell a different story.
Three days at a Dakar branch watching the eCFA pilot rollout — KYC bottlenecks, agent commissions, and what the regulators are not announcing.
WhatsApp groups now clear Morocco's informal MAD–EUR market faster than licensed bureaux. We sat with three operators.
A week of test transfers across five operators on the UK–Nigeria corridor. Wise is winning on speed; the FX spread story is more nuanced.
Weekly data column on diaspora flows.
The Bank revised 2024 LMIC remittances downward to $672B. Three corridors absorb most of the cut. Methodology, not flows, explains it.
Q1 disclosures from Wise, Remitly and MoneyGram show take-rates falling, but the geography of the compression matters more than the average.
Chainalysis says stablecoins now move $785B/year across borders. We rebuild the number from on-chain primitives. It holds — with three caveats.
Non-resident mortgage rates compared to Nova's effective rate, across eight corridors. Where the spread is widest may surprise you.
Contrarian readings of the consensus narrative.
Aspora is being celebrated as a diaspora-finance template. Its unit economics, license stack, and corridor concentration suggest otherwise.
The latest BIS quarterly is being cited as a stablecoin downgrade. The actual text says something narrower — and more interesting.
Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria have re-floated the diaspora-bond idea this year. The 2008–2016 data set says investors do not want them.
The April 2026 SCPI guidance closes one loophole and opens two. We read every paragraph so non-resident subscribers don't have to.